


Folk Tales

by lantadyme



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, Roleplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-23
Updated: 2011-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-27 22:06:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lantadyme/pseuds/lantadyme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's more to FLARP than game day. Aradia and Terezi RP on the side.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Folk Tales

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Stonestrewn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stonestrewn/gifts).



Part of being a good clouder is knowing everything about the territory the game is going to be played on. Every crack and cranny, every turn and twist and pitfall. Everywhere to hide a trap or a challenge or a trick of the light to trip up a game's rival player. Aradia picks over the rocks and crumbling stalagmites, flashlight turned into all the darkest corners to illuminate the tests that could be concealed within. This is a new cave, one she hasn't been through and through before. The heels of her boots ring echoes against the vaulting cavern walls, stone damp with condensation and everything smelling of earth and age.

How Vriska found this cave is a mystery. It's closer to the ocean than Aradia's ever been before, waves hissing far in the distance. If Vriska knows about this place then Team Scourge will definitely have the upper hand. Tavros hasn't walked these caverns yet, and Aradia stands here in the middle of it, taking the steps for him as she plots the well-woven challenges she'll push into Vriska's path when the game is on next week.

It's a big cave, good for drops from above and other dangers. The acoustics turn her footsteps back to her, susurrus tumbling through her hearing in mimicry of the whispers in her head. The pixel flaps of bat wings will be hypnotic. Her fingers tighten on the flashlight and the coils of her whip, and Aradia grins in the darkness. This will be a challenging game, fun for its difficulty.

There are times when she wishes she could be the one to face Vriska, not to spare Tavros but because a change in the game would throw Vriska off. As a clouder, she already knows all the ins and outs of how Vriska plays. In a place like this she sees the potential—the sound reverberating and oppressive all around her, the dark cloying and close, the moisture pressed through the fabric of her skirt and twisting the loose ends of her hair into messy curls. Tavros could throw his weight behind her, fold her into the darkness and pop her forward again at just the right moment, just the right strike. She could take her apart. She could string Vriska up to the walls with her whip, win in no time flat (maybe; if the time was right and Vriska's luck had run out). Team Charge isn't made of losers, but this would be different. It would be satisfying to do it herself, to prove to Vriska that each game isn't laid out just for her, ripe for the picking. The hateful snotty look on Vriska's face would be a treasure for all the world, up close and personal.

Tavros is the player though. Deep inside, Aradia knows that's for the best.

The acoustics changes again, new footsteps added next to the sound of her own. Aradia freezes, twists off the power to her flashlight. The light swells up again but she already knows the signature of that tapping stride. Terezi walks out and stands in the middle of the chamber, casting her own flashlight over the walls. She turns in a calm circle, and when the light plays over Aradia she grins wide and knowing, not startled for a moment.

"There you are!"

"You were looking for me?" Aradia asks, her boots tapping on the cave floor as she comes forward and bumps fists with her friend.

Terezi nods, eyes bright and sharp. They're full of the kind of weighted calculation that makes Aradia hunger for competition. For all that Vriska has the brash in-your-face attitude that tips so many teams off their winning streak, as much as her powers cheat and hack through high-ranking duos, Terezi is an equally deadly half of the Scourge Sister whole. She sits at her computer and taps at her keys, and when she speaks into her mic into the rival player's ear, she can take apart empires. Aradia started playing for Tavros, and she keeps playing to show up Vriska and to try to be as good as Terezi one day.

"I was hoping I'd run into you here," Terezi says with a mischievous grin. "You know everything about caves. This one is rumored to have been used by an ancient religious sect of interest to the legislacerators at the time! I thought it would be fun to explore together. And we can plan our campaign at the same time!"

Aradia beams, nodding. "I hadn't heard those rumors! Is this a highblood secret?"

"Maybe! Vriska told me."

That could mean any number of things. Taking something Vriska says at face value has led numerous trolls to their deaths. She's been known to play even Terezi, to twist up everything in lies wrapped in some game. Having Aradia along with her would be useful to Terezi—she would have someone on hand to verify if anything they stumble upon is real or planted. (But what if it isn't? The adventurer in Aradia thrills at the chance to uncover something hidden.)

Either way, it would be fun to explore the cave together.

Aradia steps back, eyes narrowed in mock guard as she holds the coils of her whip up between the two of them, arm firm and wary. She tips a little over-the-top drama into her voice. "And why would I give Scourge that upper hand? Are you trying to play me?"

Terezi slips into the RP as easy as breathing, suddenly ramrod straight and precise weighted movements. Her character is as different from Terezi as the opposite sides of a coin. "Are you accusing me of being crooked? I'll have you know neophyte Redglare is always honest with every intention!"

"In intention, but not always in deed."

"I swear on my position as an agent of His Honorable Tyranny's iron fist of truth. I will not lead you into dark waters."

Aradia pauses, letting the silence hang in the air. The wariness is still in her eyes but she tips her hat in approval anyway. "Deal. But I've got my eye on you, Redglare."

They scamper off to explore the other caverns and twisting tunnels of the cave. Stalactites drip limewater from the ceiling, spattering the ground with slick silt. Terezi's red shoes are ruined in a minute but she doesn't care. She grins wide as a deathbat and jumps deftly up to peek into hollows in the walls. There are endless places to hide a test or a trap or a digital toothy monster. With Terezi this close, the exploration itself is a game. Aradia keeps her face straight, her eyes careful not to linger too long on any one obstacle or hollow, careful not to give away the plans that are falling together in her head for this campaign. Terezi is as unreadable as ever, running through the muck with the beam of her flashlight darting over the walls, their twin spotlights illuminating the darkness.

"What are you looking for exactly?" Aradia asks eventually, both of them slightly winded from the climb up a slick wall. There's mud on her palms that she wipes off with the hem of her skirt.

"I'm not sure. The legal history books didn't say what exactly was of interest in here. Just that there was something! It could be anything."

Aradia hums to herself, trying to imagine what could be tucked away in this wet, mucky cave that ancient lawyers would want. The walls have all been bare except for rock formations, no sign of any section of the cave having been used as a long-term residence. And who would want to hide in this damp anyway? Any books would have turned to mush ages ago.

Terezi stops up ahead, a good ten paces down a tunnel. "What's that?" she asks the air, shining her light at the wall to her right. Aradia's boots squelch through the silt, but Terezi is already moving, already ducking through a hole in the wall and moving forward by the time she gets there. The darkness is deep, the entrance barely large enough to emit a young troll. Aradia squints through it at Terezi's back, no more than a pace into whatever lies beyond. But that's not all she can see—it's bright inside.

"What is it? Is it safe? Be sure to check for possible cave-ins."

Terezi waves her free hand back at Aradia's face. "I don't think it's going to collapse right now. It's a huge cavern! There's a hole in the ceiling!"

"What? Let me see!" She crawls through, grit from the limestone pressed into her palms. The silt smudges on her knees and the toes of her shoes. Terezi steps aside as Aradia makes her way through. The silence is huge and hollow, but Aradia can already see the grain of the rock around her, see the stones and the mineral deposits on the floor. There's ambient light in here, light not thrown off by their flashlights. She stands up with wide eyes and looks into the gloom.

"Wow."

It's big. The hollows of the rock catch her word and throw it back over and over: wo _wowo wowow_ repeating in murmurs. The ceiling of the chamber goes up nearly two stories, as wide around inside as half of her hive. Stalactites run in even spacing around the perimeter, some of them so long and thick they've swallowed up their stalagmite brothers and now stand as a solid column of limestone floor to ceiling. Boulders and puddles litter the ground. The rock everywhere is damp, everything smelling of earth and wet. This is an old place. Aradia's eyes pick out the specifics of the rock formations and she feels in her bones that this place has stood here undisturbed for millennia.

Or mostly undisturbed. There's a gaping chimney punched in the ceiling, old stress fractures and the jagged edges of the wound long since healed up with lime and sand. Moonlight drifts in dimly, just enough to see the shine of water on the walls.

"It looks like a courthouse cathedral!" Terezi whispers with a vicious grin on her face. Her chin is tipped up, eyes skirting the ceiling as she traces her flashlight over the columns. "Smaller, of course. There's no way you could fit all of Judge Tyranny in here. But—!" Her shoes clip over the muddy ground as she jumps forward. Terezi leaps up and lands on the smooth face of a boulder nearly half as tall as she is, flashlight and swordcane in hand. She sets the light down at her feet and stands proud above it all, eyes narrowed, Redglare's perfect composure and treachery painted on her mouth. "This is the location I was searching for. Your help has been commendable, Indiana Jones. I would thank you, but you have suddenly stopped being useful to me. Seeing as you are once again on my mercies, it's high time I tried you for your crimes of looting and destruction of Alternian historical artifacts."

The cave is safe. There's no chance of a collapse. Aradia scowls, eyes narrowed and play-angry as she pulls Indiana's persona back over herself. The whip falls out of its coils, ready to use. "I should have known you would pull this kind of sudden but inevitable betrayal, Redglare. For all you swear by fairness and honesty, your love of the law is too strict to let anything slip past. Even a healthy sense of adventure!"

"Looting is a serious crime, Mr. Jones. And now you will stand trial!"

Terezi leaps from the boulder, her shoes splashing up water. She strikes at Aradia, cane in hand and her movements practiced and dangerous. A whip is a clumsy weapon in combat this close, and Aradia moves backward, snatching up long loops in her opposite hand to try to handicap Terezi's use of her own. The head of the dragon cane gets tangled up and Terezi snarls in frustration, throwing her weight in closer. Face to face and teetering, Aradia feels her feet slip out from under her and they both go down on the cold cave floor, weapons tangled up between them as Terezi presses Aradia's wrists to the floor like shackles. "Got you," Terezi hisses, nose to nose, her eyes wild with Redglare's fanaticism.

"You got lucky," Aradia spits. Their faces are kiss close; Indiana never gives in easy. "So now what, neophyte? Haul me back to the Courts and put me on trial by completely legal measures? Or are you going to decide this is the place to break your precious law? Hang me here in this unsanctioned court cave like the criminal you keep insisting I am?"

Terezi rears back, scowling in offense. Her hands keep Aradia's pinned to the floor, their bodies pressed together and mud seeping cold into Aradia's skirt. "I would never compromise myself like that."

"No, of course not," she whispers through a smile, eyes hooded and teasing. "Then what? Am I under arrest?"

"Maybe I will finally haul you in," Terezi sneers, smirking as she presses in close again, belly to belly. "End this pointless game of cat and mouse. You've desecrated historical sites with your so called adventuring, Jones. Letting you escape time and again is beginning to tarnish my record."

"You'd miss me," Aradia breathes, her voice husky as she lifts her head and brushes their lips together in a chaste, sweet kiss.

Terezi hums. "I would."

And then the whole scene falls apart as Terezi's face suddenly twists up in confusion, her eyes locking on something a little behind Aradia. She releases her wrists and abandons their tangled weapons to crawl over to whatever it is.

"What happened?"

"I saw something," Terezi answers, still on her hands and knees in the mud. She sits and starts digging through it with her fingers. "Look at this."

There's a tiny shard of white buried in the black mud. The ground here is drier than the rest of the cave, all of it caked with dirt and soil, sediments that have blown in the chimney in the ceiling over the centuries and formed a layer of earth. It's a hard damp clay, and Terezi twists the little piece of white out of it with effort.

"Here!"

The tiny head of a hoofbeast rests between her thumb and forefinger, white as a lusus and flat on the bottom. It's streaked with black clay. Aradia reaches out and takes it from Terezi, holding it up to the light of the flashlight left discarded on the boulder.

"I've been finding these lately," she says, squinting at it and her heart suddenly beating fast with excitement. There's a cigar box hidden in a safe spot back at her hive, the inside littered with siblings of this piece. "I have a bunch of them. I think there are two sets of them, one white and one black. Not all of them are hoofbeasts either."

"It's a chess piece!" Terezi declares with a grin, absolutely sure.

"Chess?"

"Yeah! I didn't know any existed on Alternia still! It was an ancient holy game the legislacerators sometimes played. I have pictures of the game in my law books, and that is definitely a chess piece! A knight."

Aradia twists the piece in her fingertips. A knight. Isn't that interesting? She turns back to Terezi, beaming. "You have to show me your books! I have a lot of these pieces. I would love to know what they're for and how the game was played! Wow, this is so neat."

Terezi laughs, sitting back in the mud. "Sure! We can do that some time. You can visit my tree!"

Terezi's clothes are wrecked, mud and silt and cave debris smeared from head to toe. Aradia looks down at her own clothes and finds them even worse off. The ground is cold, ancient rock sucking the warmth right out of her bones. She wraps her arm around herself, shivering and tired all over from the hours they've spent poking through every crack and crevice of this cave. Terezi slowly gets to her feet, wiping her muddy hands off on the fabric of her trousers.

"This was fun tonight," Aradia murmurs as she stands. The two of them wind the knots out of her whip to retrieve their weapons. "Did you finish all your plans for the campaign or do you want to stay a while longer?"

"I think I'm ready for game time." She has a conspirator's grin, teeth and hidden dimensions of possibility veiled in her eyes. There's a razor sharp plan for the campaign in her mind and she is already excited to put it into action. "Are you?"

"Don't try to tease the plans out of my head, Redglare," Aradia warns, eyes narrowed for the added drama. "I'm wise to you!"

She cackles evilly but never pulls her character entirely over her eyes. Terezi's done RPing for the day, and Aradia is okay with that. Terezi raises a finger, a point she wants to make that she punctuates by snatching her flashlight off the boulder again and illuminating the walls. She looks up at the cathedral all around them, the presence of the place vast and majestic. There's something special about it, deep and old. "Let's not let Vriska know about this cave, though. She'd want to use it for some dumb plot. I think it deserves better than that."

Aradia feels that too. "We can keep the playing field away from the tunnel that leads to it when we play next week."

Terezi nods. "Sounds like a plan! Now, do you think you can get us out of here or will we have to take the long way around?"

Aradia laughs and steps up next to the other girl. She slips her arms around Terezi's waist, close and intimate like Indiana Jones pulls his co-stars in the movies. Their feet lift off the floor, Aradia's psychic powers wrapped warmly around them. Then they go flying up through the chimney into the hot night sky. Terezi never stops grinning as the wind whips through her hair.


End file.
